


Resonance

by twodwarves_oneeagle



Series: Silence [2]
Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sibling Incest, hearing loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 07:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/619724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twodwarves_oneeagle/pseuds/twodwarves_oneeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fili must learn to deal with the loss of his hearing after being struck in the head with the blunt side of an Orc axe. Kili learns of his brother's disability and tries to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resonance

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow up to my fic Silence. You may want to check that one out first to get a sort of ground idea of what’s going on. Silence and Resonance are sort of my two babies; the prompt hits pretty close to home for me as I’ve watched my mother deal with hearing loss/getting hearing aids in the last five years and I know that I’ll more than likely lose my hearing as well. So, uh. Yeah. Enjoy the feels, I suppose.

Fili thinks that with time, he might get used to the overwhelming nothing that rings in his ears. He doesn’t need the cicadas on a midsummer’s night any more than he needs to hear the wind mutter around brooks and through glens. When the Company walks in a colubrine line weaving over plains and through forests, it’s almost easy.

What’s hard are the nights; Fili almost laughs bitter and biting when he thinks of a time he would _long_ for a silent night to sleep where he didn’t have to hear Gloin’s snores or someone mumbling nightmares in their sleep. He would trade a thousand nights of laying awake listening to that if he could just get back what he’s lost.

Kili lays so close to him, his face is creased with worry for his brother even in his sleep and his hand is wrapped around Fili’s wrist. Kili refuses to let him go, refuses to let Fili be alone in this. So as he lays awake sleepless and silent he watches Kili’s chest rise and fall and he’s struck with this realization he’ll never hear his brother breathe ever again. He’ll never hear the panting after a run, the small hitch of excitement when someone mentions _dangerous_ and he’ll never hear the slow, drawn calm of sleep that used to comfort him.

His mind spirals down that deep and savage path; he thinks of the first time his brother ever told him I love you. They had been children, Kili had been no more than three and twenty but he had shuffled up to his older brother who was focused over uncle’s forge. Thorin had allowed him access to practice in the hours it was not in use. Fili remembers the pride and the shyness twisting as a tempest inside his little chest as his little brother all wild hair, accidents and boyish invincibility presented Fili with the finest present he had received then or since. 

It was simple and dented but Kili had made it so Fili had loved it; to this day he used it as his cloak pin and was not wont to separate from it. It had lain cradled in his brother’s hands and his brother had _wooshed_ through the words “ImadethisforyouIhopeyoulikeitIloveyoubrother.”

Fili remembers the way he had taken it gingerly and attached it to his tunic for his brother’s proud eye and the eyes of all of Ered Luin to behold. He remembers the way he had teased his brother between tenderness and embarrassment as he made Kili repeat each syllable slow as molasses. 

Now, he would never hear those words again; he would never hear Kili whisper them intimately as his hair was braided to his brother’s desire and he’d never hear it belted in a drunken merry as they ricocheted their storytelling to eager bar patrons. 

Before he knows what’s happening the loss is quivering through his body; it starts in his chest and works outwards until even his hands and feet are shaking. 

Kili wakes with a start, his fingers tightening around his brother’s wrist and his brown eyes flooding with concern. His other hand weasels up between their bodies flicking through shapes and figures, _Are you well?_ Kili is either talking or mouthing the words quietly at him as his signs them. 

There had never been a need to discuss it, Kili had just started doing it after the warg attack. He would talk and talk and talk, and with every word he would enunciate and exaggerate the shape of his lips around the word.

Fili had never thought much about the shapes of lips or the stutter of teeth and tongue that came with language. He had always just done it and listened to the results of others doing it. Kili though, was teaching him to read lips. He’d sign a word in Iglishmêk and his lips would take the proper shape and form. 

Hours Fili spent watching Kili’s lips, relearning every word he had ever known how to say or understand. When he would try to speak himself, his voice growing rough with disuse the longer their caravan weaves over the land, he focuses on those same shapes. He’s trying to figure out what sound is made when his lips are wide or which when they’re drawn tight and close. 

He will never, ever know how his body learned this without his mind knowing it. 

With a combination of the lip reading and Kili signing things to him at every chance, Fili is still capable of being useful, he feels. Kili will tell him wordlessly what are the plans, what are the discussions in the group under a sleeve for discretion and Fili can reply with his two cents. 

Like with anything, there are good days and there are bad ones. Fili remembers when he first picked up a throwing axe in his childhood and on the good days he had been ecstatic and manic and proud, but the bad days there had been blood and shame and only Kili could coax him out of the back room of their small house.

He sees a lot of parallels; the good days are the ones where he can hold a conversation with someone other than Kili. Kili is there of course, hovering and ready to step in if Fili might slip up and expose himself. They’re short conversations, but he’s talking and he’s understanding. There’s this swell of hope that he could survive on reading lips like parchment with Kili narrating the difficulties. 

The bad are when he feels Gandalf appraising him with wise eyes and Thorin’s hot and shadowed gaze looking disapprovingly if he makes a mistake. If he gets in someone’s way because he can’t hear them and Kili is too late to tug him aside. 

Then there’s the hours he tries to steal away and reteach himself balance, because that has started to be swallowed up by that roar of nothing pounding in his ears. He’ll stumble and fall and the earth will bite into his clothes and palms, and sometimes he just wants to stay down. He can’t help but think, sometimes, that might be easier.

In those moments, he’s down that savage path again. The darkest corners of himself will whip incriminations at him, but if he thinks for a moment he could give up and let one sob pass through his lips, one sob for all the things that have been taken from him, it’s just another weakness that will bear down on him.

A moroseness hollows out his eyes on those days, one that Kili must sense in the thick pulse of his heart because whenever Fili starts down that thorny path of consciousness, Kili is there pulling him aside. 

Kili is the one thing that keeps the bad days at bay. 

He’ll raise his brother’s fingers to his own throat and he’ll say, “I love you, brother” and Fili can feel the vibrations of his vocal cords. Kili will pull him close, his lips ghosting over his cheek and again he’ll say, “I love you, Fili. I’m here.” 

Fili can feel those words; he feels him on his cheek and etched into the caverns of his chest. 

His younger brother will kiss his useless ears and smile with enough strength for the both of them. His fingers will sign and his throat will vibrate and his lips with grace his skin, and Kili will resonate through him in every way. _I’m here, brother; know this, feel this. I’m here._


End file.
